Loveland city councilors deal with traffic basics

When a Loveland city councilor's phone rings, a traffic complaint is as likely a reason for the call as any other.

Phones have rung, and email alerts have sounded, as residents of quiet neighborhoods let them know that cars are whizzing by their homes too bleeping fast.

Council members spent 90 minutes on Tuesday dealing with the issue of residential neighborhood traffic, and learning from city traffic engineers that it is one where perception and reality sometimes collide.

"We have exceptionally low numbers of pedestrian and bike accidents compared to cities our size nationwide," public works director Keith Reester said in response to councilor Phil Farley's question about accident data in the city's core neighborhoods.

"That is something we've been able to document, and that data is freely available."

The investment of effort put forward by Loveland employees as they field speed complaints from citizens has lots of layers.

They stretch rubber tubes across streets that tell them how many cars pass, and how fast they go.

They station portable radar units in neighborhoods that not only tell drivers how fast they're going, but offer visual evidence to residents.

And they talk.

"The biggest component in this is education," Loveland city engineer Dave Klockeman said. "We go out with these tools, and we gather the data. Often we find that the perception is that people are going way faster than they actually are."

The city has tweaked speed limits in some neighborhoods, installed "traffic-calming" devices -- speed bumps -- in others, but driver behavior in nearly every case remains the same.

"We think we can legislate behavior, but we can't," Klockeman said. "We have to design for the 99.99 percent. The other .01 percent, well ..."

Appeased, but only marginally, was Harrison Avenue resident Neil Spooner, who joined neighbors in pressing for City Council action on speeding drivers in their historic neighborhood just west of downtown.

"I understand where they're coming from, what the rationale is," Spooner said following the meeting. "They have rules. I have interests."